Chapter Four

Hainanese

海南

The Hainanese arrived later than the other Chinese dialect groups, and many became cooks in British and Peranakan households. From those colonial kitchens came a cuisine of careful technique and surprising fusion — the gentle poach of chicken rice, cracker-crusted pork chop, curry borrowed from the auntie next door, and the quiet precision of the prawn-fritter banquet starter.

Five Recipes

The Hainanese Kitchen

Hainanese Chicken Rice — vignette
Recipe Sixteen

Hainanese Chicken Rice

海南鸡饭

Sub-boiling poach, ice bath, fragrant rice cooked in chicken fat and broth. Three sauces. The dish that made Singapore famous around the world.
Hainanese Pork Chop — vignette
Recipe Seventeen

Hainanese Pork Chop

海南猪扒

Pounded pork in a Khong Guan cream-cracker crust, fried golden, draped in glossy tomato gravy with onions, peas, and potato. The colonial kitchen classic.
Hainanese Curry Rice — vignette
Recipe Eighteen

Hainanese Curry Rice

海南咖喱饭

The four heavenly kings — pork chop, curry chicken, chap chye, braised pork belly — over plain rice, drowned in three gravies. Eat it messy.
Hainanese Pork Satay — vignette
Recipe Nineteen

Hainanese Pork Satay

沙嗲猪肉

Satay babi from the Peranakan-Hainanese fence-line — rempah-marinated pork over charcoal embers, with a chunky peanut sauce and the garnish trio.
Heh Cho — vignette
Recipe Twenty

Heh Cho

虾枣

The forgotten cousin of ngoh hiang — prawn-forward, smaller, more delicate, double-fried glassy-crisp, dipped in sweet chilli with a Hainanese plum-sauce note.